How do moral judgements differ from mere expressions of personal preference PDF

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Ethics and morality....

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A moral judgement – or, for that matter, any kind of value judgement – must be supported by good reasons. If someone tells you that a certain action would be wrong, for example, you may ask why it would be wrong, and if there is no satisfactory answer, you may reject that advice as unfounded. In this way, moral judgements are different from mere expressions of personal preference. If someone says ‘I like coffee’, he does not need to have a reason – he may well be making a statement about his personal taste, and nothing more. But moral judgements require backing by reasons, and in the absence of such reasons, they are merely arbitrary. This is a point about the logic of moral judgement. It is not merely that it would be a good thing to have reasons for one’s moral judgements. The point is stronger than that. One must have reasons, or else one is not making a moral judgement at all. Therefore any adequate theory of the nature of moral judgements should be able to give some account of the connection between moral judgements and the reasons that support them. It is just at this point that emotivism falters. (James Rachels, “Subjectivism” in Singer (ed), A Companion to Ethics (Blackwell, Oxford, 1993), p. 438) According to Rachels, how do moral judgements differ from mere expressions of personal preference? Why is this a problem for the Emotivist? How can an Emotivist respond?

When considering moral judgments we unsurprisingly find ourselves facing some challenging questions. The question Rachels is addressing is: ‘Are moral judgements beliefs or some other kind of attitude?’ Rachels is arguing to show that moral judgements differ from expressions of personal preference, and throughout this essay I will explore why this statement is a problem for the Emotivist, and how the Emotivist would respond to Rachels’ proposition. Rachels advocates that without reason to support an expression, there is no moral judgement being made. For example, if one were to say “I like X”, he does not need to have any reason to support this statement. This type of statement is a statement of personal taste and nothing more. He or she may like or dislike coffee, cake, the rain, and need not give valid reasoning as to support the claim. This differs from moral judgement, in which, without reason to support them are merely arbitrary. When considering moral judgements, Rachels centres his argument around reason. To Rachels it is reason above all else which is the deciding factor in determining what is right or wrong. “Moral truths are truths of reason; that is, a moral judgement is true if it is backed by better reasons than alternatives”. Rachels is illustrating that reason differentiates from feeling and opinion, and henceforth, moral judgement does not depend on what is good, but on reason alone. In contrast, Emotivism advocates that moral judgements are merely expressions of personal preference. Emotivism claims that moral judgements are statements which intend to evoke emotion or feeling. To the Emotivist, the purpose of moral judgement and discussion is to change one’s feelings on a particular subject. For example, when two people are arguing whether abortion is wrong or capital punishment is immoral, one is not only making the other aware of his stance, but is also trying to persuade the other to agree with him. Thus, Emotivists see moral judgements as persuasive and not factual, used to influence others’ views. If for

example we were to say “X is wrong”, to the Emotivist this simply means “Boo! X”. Henceforth Emotivism suggests that goodness and morality are limited to our preferences. Emotivism can be traced back to A.J Ayer who is well known for his background with the Vienna Circle and Logical Positivist movement. His philosophy of Emotivism is grounded in the epistemology of verificationism which relies solely on empirical evidence in order to attribute meaning to a statement. Moral statements and judgements have no meaning due to this reason of them being empirically verifiable. Therefore, words such as ‘right/wrong/good/evil’ add nothing to the content of a statement as ethical concepts are unanalysable. Ayer uses the example of someone who says “stealing money is wrong”. Since the “is wrong” part adds no meaning to the statement, they are really just saying “stealing money!” whilst expressing moral disapproval. Whilst one may disagree with the statement and believe stealing is not wrong, there is no way to prove the other wrong as neither can verify their propositions. Human desire and feeling constitute a large part of our beliefs, this can be seen from any religious or philosophical debate. However this is a point that Rachels’ seems to overlook when discussing moral judgement. In general, when people are stating their beliefs, the ultimate objective is to either enlighten others, help them to understand, or to enable them to feel what you are feeling. Whilst Rachels’ argument of reason is strong, it is arguably only the beginning. Once reason to support a judgement is reached, you will use these reasons to influence others and show them that you are right. Likewise, if you are not right, another person will illustrate better reasoning and thus change your feeling about the subject. To add to this, Rachels fails to see the importance of language whereas The Emotivist recognises the power and meaning in language and verification. Rachels instead decides that reason leads to moral judgement and questions it no further. On the other hand, the Emotivist goes further when asking why moral judgements hold any importance if there is no desire for others to conform to these judgements. The Emotivist recognises that reason is simply a catalyst in the emotive process of influencing others. In spite of the compelling argument for Emotivism, we can look to R.M.Hare to provide us with a counter argument. Hare advocated that we as humans are too complex to reduce morality to a matter of personal preference. He believed that the Emotivist analysis on language was too simplistic and that reason was more important that belief. In my opinion, perhaps the biggest fault to be found in Emotivism as an ethical theory is that if ethical claims really were contingent on emotions, they would change and evolve as our emotions change. In this respect, ethical claims cannot be universally applicable as emotions vary between individuals. Therefore, as our personal taste and belief change, so too would our moral judgements. However, we must accept that there are acts which are intrinsically wrong and never permissible such as child torture or rape. These are unchanging moral truths which would be void if Emotivism were a valid ethical theory. Furthermore, by regarding everyone’s opinion as equally valid, emotivism is thus prescribing complete freedom to individuals. This therefore allows everyone to do as they please, irrespective of the opinion or needs of others. This is clearly an issue and renders emotivism inadequate as an ethical theory. We can see this when evaluating crime, it is not enough to

simply argue that one was acting on just emotion. Also, we must consider that not everyone may be in the position to hold sane or rational value judgements, meaning that sadistic and narcissistic preferences must be permissible and held as equal to the preferences of a rational human being....